Past winners
ERC Consolidator Grant, recent awardees
Up to €2M for mid-career researchers 5-15 years post-PhD (from the 2027 calls) consolidating their independent research team.
4229 funded projects indexed from OpenAlex and CORDIS
Awards per year
Top countries
- GB×21
- DE×19
- NL×11
- CH×9
- IT×8
Top institutions
4,229 awards recorded, 2013 to 2026, across 35 countries.
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS×226
- The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford×84
- University of Cambridge×74
- Weizmann Institute of Science×74
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften Ev×63
- Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas×55
- Institut National de la Sante Et de la Recherche Medicale×55
- Kobenhavns Universitet×55
2026
Decoding tumour-immune interactions and the evolutionary trajectories of complex genomic rearrangements in highly aggressive cancers
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · GB · €1,999,682
Cancer genomes are riddled by remarkably complex forms of structural variants collectively known as complex genomic rearrangements (CGRs). Our previous work showed that CGRs occur at high frequency in some of the deadliest cancers in humans and underpin drug resistance and poor prognosis. Yet, the impact of CGRs on immune escape, cancer cell plasticity, metastasis, drug resistance and clonal evolution remains elusive. As a result, we have not been able to deliver eagerly awaited breakthroughs fo
2025
Molecular engineering of ion-conductive polymers for regulating heterogeneous electrochemical interfaces
THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM · GB · €2,699,039
To achieve the EU’s Net Zero emissions goals by 2050, there is an urgent need for accelerating the development of electrochemical technologies for energy conversion, such as production of renewable fuels and chemicals. Membrane electrode assemblies, consisting of ion-exchange membranes and ion-conductive polymers as electrode catalyst binders, are central components that dominate the efficiency and stability of electrochemical reactions at interfaces. However, commercial ion-exchange membranes a
Connecting human brain structure to function within the READing circuitry
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA · IT · €1,945,937
The READy project aims to reach a deeper understanding of reading behavior by modeling the speed of brain responses to text as a function of white matter fiber properties. It bridges two traditionally separate cognitive neuroscience fields and methods by linking human brain structural connections to their electrophysiological function. Research findings from ex-vivo preparations and animal models have clearly shown that the conduction velocity of neural signals depends on axonal tissue propertie
Indigenous Peoples Food Systems’ statistics: nurturing epistemic diversity in the configuration of quantitative data for the right to foods
LONDON AND SOUTH EAST UNIVERSITY GROUP · GB · €1,999,081
In the pursuit of food systems transformation to realise the right to foods, scientists and decision-makers are challenged by culturally biased categorisations of food systems and Western scientific knowledge “gatekeeping”, which have resulted in a call to amplify underrepresented -but critically important- voices in decision-making and research processes, such as those of Indigenous Peoples. While Indigenous Peoples’ sciences, in all their diversity, depth and vitality, are actively developed b
MULTI-RES Rethinking Multilevel Responsibilities in Displacement(s)
UNIVERSITAET OSNABRUECK · DE · €1,956,791
Mass displacement due to conflict and climate change is a growing global challenge, revealing a significant gap: disagreements over fair responsibility-sharing. The MULTI-RES examines actors, mechanisms, and drivers of responsibility-taking, sharing, and avoidance in addressing displacement situations. It proposes a multi-level and multi-disciplinary analytical framework based on three interrelated pillars: the transnational responsibility of international institutions, the politics of responsi
Mining the ubiquitin system for catalytic activities through advanced ubiquitin probes
UNIVERSITAET DUISBURG-ESSEN · DE · €1,999,721
I propose a chemoproteomic platform for the discovery of unchartered eraser activities regulating post-translational modifications within the ubiquitin system. This approach will be enabled by a suite of advanced ubiquitin probes. These reagents recapitulate the complexity of cellular polyubiquitin modifications and are equipped with novel electrophilic handles to report on polyubiquitin chain length- and linkage-dependent activities of deubiquitinating enzymes. These enzymes reverse ubiquitin m
A History of Self-determination across the Sinosphere: Genealogies, Narratives, and the Geopolitics of a Concept
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA · IT · €1,950,000
Self-determination is one of the defining political concepts of the 20th century. From the closure of World War I to the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, from the age of nationalism to the struggle for decolonization, and up to the contemporary debate on universal human rights, defining “self-determination” has been central to the articulation of different, and often competing, political and geopolitical agendas (Sparks 2023). Hence, exploring this concept often resembles “opening a veritable Pand
Reachability in Infinite Systems at High Resolution
UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI · PL · €1,998,500
The reachability problem is central in computer science. One of the first steps towards understanding computation was showing undecidability of the problem for Turing machines. Recently with co-authors we achieved another milestone, which opens new horizons in the area: we determined the complexity of reachability for Vector Addition Systems with States (VASS) to be Ackermann-complete. The aim of this project is to obtain new milestones in understanding of the reachability problem and the relate
Systematic Framework of Functional Theories for Strongly Correlated Electrons
UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE · CH · €1,999,508
Density Functional Theory (DFT) is the cornerstone of modern electronic structure calculations in academia and industry. However, it suffers fundamental limitations rooted intrinsically in its design: it fails to describe strongly correlated systems, lacks robust predictive power, and cannot be systematically improved. This hampers the accurate modelling of complex materials essential for energy, electronics, and industrial innovation.BeyondDFT aims to overcome these barriers by establishing one
Emergence of quantum information as a phase of matter in non-equilibrium systems
UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA · ES · €1,998,436
To develop quantum technologies, one must be able to stabilize and manipulate quantum coherence and information in non-equilibrium quantum many-body systems. State-of-the-art approaches are based on correcting many-body effects to stabilize coherence and information, but quantum technologies, such as fault-tolerant quantum computing, have still not been achieved. The PI’s recent discovery of fundamental algebraic principles that determine quantum many-body dynamics has the potential to be a basi
Nuclear Echoes: Nuclear Weapons Pasts in the Present
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON · GB · €1,999,825
NUCLEAR ECHOES is the first project of its kind to systematically study nuclear weapons commemoration and their present-day effects. We are today witnessing a global nuclear weapons revival, moving further away from the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. All nuclear weapons states are actively modernizing their nuclear arsenals and arms control agreements are being abandoned. In Europe, the War in Ukraine reinforces nuclear weapons as a core feature of extended security among NATO countrie
Power Electronics As Edge Computing Grid Components
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · NL · €2,000,000
Increasing electricity generation with renewables and enabling the transportation sector's electrification are urgently needed to decarbonise our society. Power Electronic Converters (PECs) perform electrical energy conversions by utilising Silicon power semiconductor devices. PECs also enable integration of renewables, energy storage for grid support and e-mobility loads with the decentralized electric grid. Replacing Silicon with Silicon Carbide (SiC) semiconductors will advance PECs’ efficien
PublicLab
TILBURG UNIVERSITY- UNIVERSITEIT VAN TILBURG · NL · €2,000,000
Experimentation is a foundational practice in the digital economy. Datafication, platformisation and automation have created opportunities to experiment either on, or with, human subjects on an unprecedented scale – but also with an unprecedented lack of scrutiny since digitisation has effectively broken the link between experimentation and its governance. Hybrid forms of institutional embedding compound the governance challenge, with experimentation conducted through state or corporate intermed
Unveiling the Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects in Psychotherapy for Depression: A Synthesis of Individual Patient Data
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM · NL · €2,038,241
Depression affects hundreds of millions of people, causing profound global suffering and underscoring the urgent need for effective treatments, like various psychotherapy types. Despite decades of research demonstrating psychotherapy’s effectiveness, outcomes remain stagnant, with over 50% of patients not responding to treatment. This stagnation underscores the necessity for targeted approaches to maximize treatment benefits, particularly given the heterogeneity of treatment effects (HTE) driven
Attention-Based Compressive Readout Chips for Massively Parallel Brain-Computer Interfaces
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €2,364,505
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can revolutionize society by restoring lost function and augmenting human capabilities. Next-generation BCIs must record large neuron populations at single-cell and cell-type resolution to speak the natural language of the brain. This requires substantial advances in large-scale low-noise readout electronics while addressing power, area, and data transmission bottlenecks. LOOK will develop radically new low-power and low-area “nearly lossless” compressive readout
Precision Evidence-based psychological Aid for Children in Emergency
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA · IT · €1,844,375
Children affected by humanitarian crises face conflict-related violence, human rights abuses, extreme poverty, and natural disasters. Exposure to adversity increases the risk of psychological distress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Controversial and inconsistent evidence on the effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial support interventions (MHPSS-I) for children exposed to humanitarian crises suggests that some interventions may be harmful, impede recovery and increase psycholo
Splicing Regulation in Context: Next-Generation mechanistic studies
MIEDZYNARODOWY INSTYTUT BIOLOGII MOLEKULARNEJ I KOMORKOWEJ W WARSZAWIE · PL · €1,989,733
Precise and faithful removal of non-coding introns from the precursors of messenger RNAs is critical for productive gene expression. This process is catalysed by the spliceosome - one of the cell’s most complex molecular machines. Aberrant splicing is responsible for numerous diseases, including neuropathies, developmental disorders and cancers. In the past decade, structural studies of the spliceosome have transformed the field by providing unprecedented insights into its fundamental mechanism
Single-cell ribosome profiling to monitor the translational landscape of tumor-initiating cells
UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €2,992,158
Temporal control of gene expression is critical for cancer cells. However, while transcriptional control has been extensively studied in cancer, it has become evident that translational control is a major determinant of protein abundance and cellular function. Therefore, protein synthesis pathways have immense, hitherto untapped potential to understand tumorigenesis and may provide novel entry points for cancer therapies. Tumors are heterogeneous tissues, where a small subset of tumor-initiating
Which Public Sphere System for Democracy?
UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG · DE · €2,000,000
The transition from traditional journalism to algorithm-driven digital media has intensified existing chal-lenges such as news bias, selective exposure, and polarization, which threaten democratic engagement. An optimally constructed news environment enables an informed and engaged citizenry, which forms the foundation for the socio-political interactions that take place within democracies. This project introduces Public Sphere Systems (PSS), a groundbreaking framework that reimagines how news s
Beliefs, Information, and Markets
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II · IT · €1,900,000
The central aim of this project is to explore how individuals form and update beliefs, and how these processes deviate from the normative Bayesian framework. By understanding these deviations, the project seeks to uncover the implications of biased beliefs for markets, consumer behaviour, and welfare. This research agenda will be developed in three interconnected parts, each addressing a crucial aspect of belief formation.The first part studies how individuals form beliefs about others. It argue
Sub-national economic inequalities and electoral change in Europe
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON · GB · €1,997,232
Economic grievances accounts of the rise of the populist radical right concentrate on poorer places that suffer from lack of opportunity. These geographic divides have explained the rise of Trump in the US or Brexit in the UK. However, the focus on ‘left-behind’ places conceals a paradox. Populist radical right voting across Europe is also concentrated in many objectively wealthier places, where theoretically conditions for this phenomenon are not favourable.To address this paradox, INEQCHANGE i
Advancing therapeutic base editing for vision loss
INSTITUT FUR MOLEKULARE UND KLINISCHE OPHTHALMOLOGIE BASEL · CH · €2,000,000
Precision gene editing holds immense potential to treat both genetic and non-genetic disorders, representing a paradigm shift in medicine and therapeutics. The eye serves as an ideal model for the development of such innovative therapies due to its accessibility, small size, and relatively immune-privileged environment. Furthermore, most forms of vision loss remain untreatable with conventional medicines, and new treatments are urgently needed. Over the recent years, we have developed therapeuti
Protest, Public opinion and Electoral preferences: how protest propels political change.
UNIVERSITEIT HASSELT · BE · €2,000,000
With advanced democracies facing a “crisis of representation” and protest on the rise, PROPEL considers the interplay between protest and public opinion (PPO) as a key force shaping the future of democratic politics. Whereas extant research has studied how movements capture parties or how street mobilizations develop into electoral challengers, PROPEL scrutinizes the essential—but critically overlooked—dynamic underlying these movement-party interactions: the impact of protest on public opinion
After Sampling Culture: Synthetic media as culture in twenty-first century music
THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM · GB · €1,999,789
Arising in recent years to refer to the collective products of generative AI, the concept of ‘synthetic media’ indexes the rise of a new world in which nothing of what we see or hear online is immune from being fabricated. Through its 60+ year engagement with synthetic sound, music stands to offer unique, historically-grounded insight into synthetic media as culture, thus moving beyond the naive realist and alarmist framing of real vs fake that dominates popular commentary. However, to date synt
Reparations as Pan-African Indigenous Repair
THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL · GB · €1,999,999
Reparations for the enslavement and colonization of African peoples is fast becoming one of the most important issues of our time. Yet their meaning is poorly understood as financial compensation. Re-PAIR will provide a unique transnational and ethnographic study of the Pan-African network of social movements and initiatives that understand reparations not as a ‘paycheque’ but as a process of cultural and spiritual healing grounded in African Indigenous practices. It asks: what does it mean to r
A New Normal After the Camps? State–kinship Dynamics in Minoritised Communities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
UNIVERZITA PALACKEHO V OLOMOUCI · CZ · €1,999,717
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is one of the most surveilled and restricted areas in the world and has recently been at the centre of intense information wars, geopolitics and propaganda. How has a decade of policing, surveillance, mass incarceration and assimilation by the Chinese state changed social life for Uyghurs, Kazakh, Hui and other minoritised people in the region?This project reveals the current situation and the changes that have occurred since the launch of the People's War on Te
Ultimate Precision Generation of Recursive Events AT the LHC
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DORTMUND · DE · €1,998,875
Particle phenomenology has entered the precision era. After the landmark discovery of a Higgs particle at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which completes the Standard Model (SM), particle physics stands at a new frontier. Lacking any clear signs of physics beyond the SM (BSM), precision tests have become our best chance to discover new physics at the LHC. The observation of small deviations from SM predictions demands precision that can be achieved only by highest-accuracy calculations in pe
Tuning Immunity:Regulation and Functions of CaMKII at the Host-Pathogen Interface
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON · GB · €1,999,972
Bacterial diarrhoeal diseases represent a significant global health burden, particularly in vulnerable populations such as young children. A large proportion of these cases can be attributed to Salmonella and Shigella species, which have been flagged by the WHO and CDC as bacterial families posing a serious public health threat due to the rise of multi-drug resistant strains. A deep understanding of how these pathogens cause disease and how our immune system responds to infections is essential f
Topology for understanding the paired nature of cardiac arrhythmia
UNIVERSITEIT GENT · BE · €2,000,000
This proposal aims to revolutionize the understanding and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias by introducing a topological perspective, a completely novel approach in the field, offering a transformative opportunity to advance both the understanding and treatment of life-threatening arrhythmias. Reentries, where the heart's electrical signal follows an abnormal circular path, are central to arrhythmias. Current ablation strategies aim to scar tissue to disrupt these circuits. I challenge the preva
Studying sharks to unravel the developmental and cellular mechanisms that shaped the emergence and evolution of the vertebrate brain.
UNIVERSITE PARIS-SACLAY · FR · €1,994,561
Our view of vertebrate brain evolution is mainly informed by data in mammals. Lacking from this view are cartilaginous fish, that emerged around 450 million years ago with two synergistic innovations: the jaw and predatory behavior. By studying shark embryos, we noted striking similarities with mammals in developmental programs, including the presence of Basal Progenitors (BPs) and Cajal-Retzius cells (CRs), transitory cell types essential for the massive expansion and structural complexity of t
Before the Image: The Political Ontology of Image-Making for Legal and Social Justice
KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · DK · €2,000,000
Image-capturing devices are in our hands and pockets, attached to buildings, vehicles, and bodies, and above us in the sky. They document violence, war crimes, and human rights abuses in images that are used in trials and for social justice. Despite their promise of truth, images are also recognised as biased, partial, and positioned. However, this has mainly been explored by studying images – or people engaged with taking or viewing them. To understand images for legal and social justice, we mu
Principled Microarchitectural Security with Leakage Contracts
FUNDACION IMDEA SOFTWARE · ES · €1,999,878
Microarchitectural attacks exploit hardware side-effects to compromise otherwise secure programs. These attacks rely on microarchitectural leaks, which reveal information about a program's execution through indirect observations (e.g., by measuring a program's execution time) of a CPU internal state. Through these leaks, attackers can, for instance, stealthily recover encryption keys and secret passwords from security-critical software.To prevent leaks, software developers need to reason about
Investigating Spin Dynamics with Electron Microscopy
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN · AT · €1,996,776
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a highly developed technology that employs wave properties of electrons to resolve structures at an atomic level. Unfortunately, for sensitive (e.g. biological) specimens, radiation-induced damage remains a significant limitation, preventing the observation of dynamics at relevant scales and hindering access to the ultimate resolutions achievable with TEM.ISDEM combines for the first time non-invasive magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques with elec
Sensorimotor learning and control across timescales
FUNDACAO D. ANNA DE SOMMER CHAMPALIMAUD E DR. CARLOS MONTEZ CHAMPALIMAUD · PT · €2,123,300
Our ability to move is acquired during development and continuously expanded and flexibly adapted during our lifetime. Yet, the details of how our brains endow us with malleable motor repertoires remain elusive. Lesion studies and observations in neurological patients have identified cortical and subcortical regions that are necessary for movement. Similar research inspired mapping specific behavioural functions (computations) onto specific brain regions. For example, accurate control of limb mo
Scientist in the loop - Automation of scientific discovery
HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO · FI · €1,740,825
Where do new scientific ideas come from? That is the question at the root of research on scientific discovery. In the past decade, AI-augmented methods have shaken the practices of discovery across a range of research fields: AlphaFold solved the long-standing protein folding problem; automated discovery methods are being used to decipher ancient scripts once considered unreadable, and to synthesize drugs for previously untreatable diseases. According to the most enthusiastic advocates, in less
Spectacles of Consumption: Arts, Ecologies, and Politics of Feasting at Early Modern Muslim Courts
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA · IT · €1,999,500
At the early modern courts of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, feasts were complex multisensory events into which enormous natural, material, and human resources were poured. At feasts, the presentation of extravagantly perfumed foods in sumptuous vessels formed only part of broader ephemeral spectacles designed to activate all the senses and to arouse myriad emotions from wonder to shame. Celebrated on religious, diplomatic and other formal occasions, feasts brought together locals and forei
Tropical forest adaptation to a changing biosphere
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE · GB · €2,998,750
Tropical forests harbour over half of Earth's biodiversity, are vital to global carbon and nutrient cycles, contribute to over a billion people’s livelihoods around the world and now are at risk of shifting from carbon sinks to sources. This proposal explores and quantifies how the functional composition of trees and their soil microbiota influences the capacity of tropical forests to adapt to climate change, and aims to identify the functional syndromes becoming more prevalent across this biome
Land Markets and Economic Development
UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €1,998,750
Land is the cornerstone of economic development for the vast majority of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa. It underpins agricultural livelihoods, secures household welfare, and serves as a vital resource for structural transformation. Historically, scholars argued that abundant land resources rendered land markets negligible, but this perspective is increasingly challenged by rapid population growth, urbanization, and climate change, which have intensified competition for land and revealed i
Off-axis crack arrest by harnessing micro- and mesostructural design
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · BE · €2,573,125
Off-axis cracks are the first and most crucial design-limiting damage in composites, but studying their initiation and propagation is very challenging, causing a lack of understanding. Bio-inspiration is a powerful strategy to design new materials by circumventing the intricate interactions between structure and damage development. However, this strategy often fails to recreate the complex, multiscale nature of natural materials, does not fully consider the very different constituent properties,
Investigating the malaria-driven autoimmune imprint of humoral immunity
BERNHARD-NOCHT-INSTITUT FUER TROPENMEDIZIN · DE · €1,960,433
Malaria was the strongest selective pressure in recent human evolution, yet its profound impact on our immune system is poorly understood. My recent work showed that high autoantibody (AAb) titers correlate with a 41% reduced risk of febrile malaria. These AAbs inhibit Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) growth and bind Pf invasion proteins. I propose that effective malaria immunity is autoreactive, presenting a paradigm shift where controlled breakdowns in immune tolerance are essential for protection.
Metastability in Quantum Materials and Simulators
INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN · SI · €1,986,470
Recent advances in laser technology, material fabrication, and innovative cavity designs have unlocked the potential for photo-engineering metastable phases in an increasing range of quantum materials and simulators. These strongly correlated systems pose fundamental questions about emergent, non-thermal phases that lack equilibrium counterparts. In contrast to the remarkable experimental progress, theory still cannot systematically describe, classify, or predict metastable phases. Existing theo
Manipravalam: Insight, Research, and Analysis
UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG · DE · €1,999,888
Manipravalam (“pearl and coral”), a blend of Sanskrit and local languages, emerged as a predominant language in the Tamil region during the 2nd millennium. Its unique linguistic character facilitated its role as a bridge-language that transmitted religious knowledge and united multiple religious traditions, inter alia. This language played a crucial role in shaping South India’s linguistic, religious, and cultural landscape during the medieval period. Although primarily associated with medieval
Gravitational Lensing of Waves
AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · ES · €2,185,007
Gravitational lensing provides invaluable insight into astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. Now, a new frontier is open thanks to observational breakthroughs in gravitational waves (GWs) and fast radio bursts (FRBs). Like visible light, these signals are deflected and magnified by gravitational fields, but their phase coherence exposes wave-optics lensing phenomena: wavefront distortions that can help us identify very distant sources and characterize the intervening matter distribut
Eliminating Leishmaniasis: Novel Strategies to Prevent Leishmania Transmission and Control Sand Flies through Pharmacological Treatment
UPPSALA UNIVERSITET · SE · €1,999,740
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a neglected tropical disease caused by Leishmania parasites, forms a significant health challenge in the Indian subcontinent and Eastern Africa. Despite substantial progress towards elimination, critical challenges persist in the ‘last mile’ to achieve and maintain elimination. I propose the innovative 5-year TRANSPHORM project, where I will develop novel pharmacological strategies to prevent Leishmania transmission and control sand fly vectors. Patients with the ski
Conspiracy Theorizing from South Asia. Formation, Mediatization, and Appropriation.
FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN · DE · €1,999,375
While conspiracy theories (CT) are widely debated as a global phenomenon, case studies from the Global North have largely shaped their definitions. This project aims to expand the field by examining the formation, mediatization, and appropriation of conspiracy theories in South Asia to challenge the dominance of Europe and US-centric perspectives in three ways: (a) Empirically: Positioning South Asia—home to one-quarter of the world’s population—on the map of conspiracy theory studies, we will e
Computational Neuroscience-based Interventions for OCD
EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN · DE · €1,999,903
Mental ill-health is one of the biggest challenges for today’s society. Mental disorders are widespread and pervasive, yet our traditional approach to treating patients is archaic, ignoring clinical heterogeneity and their neurobiological causes. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a paradigmatic case, where – despite its pervasiveness – many treatments have been discovered serendipitously, where the gold-standard treatments have not changed substantially for decades despite their modest effe
New structures in primes and Diophantine approximation
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · GB · €1,995,717
Prime numbers have fascinated mathematicians for centuries, and have given rise to some of the oldest and most notorious open problems. Despite their central status, many fundamental aspects of the primes remain beyond the reach of current techniques.This project aims to make progress on central questions related to the distribution of primes. The goal is to develop new versatile techniques that can provide inroads to the fundamental problems at the heart of the subject, building on recent break
Appetite and Obesity: leveraging the power of dog genetics for biomedical insight.
THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · GB · €1,986,152
Epidemic obesity threatens global health and has been attributed to changes in diet and lifestyle. However, not everyone gains weight in an obesogenic environment. Heritable variation in appetite renders some individuals susceptible to weight gain, but which genes are responsible and why, and what overlap is there between appetite and obesity genes? I study pet dogs to identify genes and molecular mechanisms underlying obesity, with the overarching aim of reducing the impact of obesity on human
DYE-a-LOG: A Global Reinterpretation of Synthetic Dye History in Non-European Textiles
BRITISH MUSEUM · GB · €2,877,282
DYE-a-LOG bridges the gap between the chemistry of synthetic dyes and the economic, social and cultural implications of their introduction in non-European textile-making practices, offering a new ground-breaking understanding of the complex dynamics underpinning this global phenomenon. It shifts from dominant Eurocentric perspectives that frame the development and spread of synthetic dyes as positive industrial progress to outward-looking narratives that restore agency to the various local and g
ENGINEERING MULTIVALENCY FOR SUPERSELECTIVE RECOGNITION OF PATHOGEN TARGETS
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €1,996,846
The recent pandemic has emphasised the need to rapidly develop materials that can detect, inhibit and destroy viruses and other pathogens. Antibodies achieve selective recognition of biological targets at ultralow concentrations via multivalent interactions, i.e. the cooperative binding of multiple sites to cognate receptors. While antibody deployment is ubiquitous in diagnostics and therapy, their animal-based manufacturing is costly, time-consuming, lacks universal applicability and raises eth
How do cells absorb nutrients: Spatially resolving nutrient uptake using intestinal cells as a paradigm
HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO · FI · €1,989,207
Cells need a constant supply of nutrients to maintain homeostasis, integrity and identity. In multicellular organisms, cells of different types tightly control this chemical exchange with their environment depending on metabolic requirements. While intracellular metabolic and nutrient-sensing pathways are widely studied, our understanding of how cells regulate their nutrient uptake in the first place remains largely unexplored. Nutrient uptake occurs at the cellular membranes via transporter pro
Cracking the Host Sugar Code: Insights into H5Nx Influenza A Virus Adaptation and Pathogenesis
UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT · NL · €2,000,000
Sugar-Viro will create advanced glycoscience tools to address critical questions in H5Nx influenza A virus (IAV) biology, aiming to enhance surveillance, inform antiviral development, and contribute to the fight against IAV infections. To initiate infection, respiratory pathogens like IAV must interact with complex carbohydrate structures, or glycans, present on the respiratory epithelium. However, virus-glycan interactions remain poorly understood due to the diversity, biosynthetic complexity,
GENERATION EU (GenEU): The development of European identity and implications for social cohesion and peace
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN · IE · €2,000,000
Youth in Europe may be the first generation of native EU citizens in their country; their support for and identification with Europe are essential for peace on the continent. Identity formation is an essential development task across the lifespan; yet in middle childhood and early adolescence, there is low identity complexity. Therefore, it is essential to understand how children and adolescents develop and identify with superordinate categories (e.g. being European), and the impact of those ide
Global study of the macro- and individual-level causes and consequences of loneliness
THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN · IE · €1,990,901
Loneliness is a universal social phenomenon experienced across the life-course that has implications for the health and well-being of both individuals and societies. Distinct from simply ‘being alone’, loneliness refers to individuals’ assessment of the quantity and quality of their social relationships and this assessment is shaped by social and cultural norms and expectations. Despite the negative assessments that ferment loneliness being shaped by the contexts in which they are made, most res
Sensing Ecocide: Advancing Accountability for Environmental Atrocity Crimes
NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU · NO · €1,999,830
The entanglement of climate change, extractive projects, and conflict has expanded environmental violence to a planetary scale, complicating causal chains between victims, perpetrators, sources, and impacts. SEECODE aims to address these challenges through artistic research, deepening our understanding of the representational and causal complexities of environmental violence. By focusing on both existing international crimes and the emerging crime of ecocide, or crimes against the environment, S
Functional evolution of the cell autonomous innate immunity in mammals
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €2,528,637
Cell-autonomous innate immunity is the first line of defense against pathogens and is crucial in infections, viral cross-species transmissions and autoimmunity. In mammals, it is notably composed of proteins from the interferon pathway inhibiting viruses within infected cells. In turn, viruses evade or antagonize immunity, leading to virus-host evolutionary arms-races. Beyond classic adaptation by site-specific positive selection, we discovered cases of gene duplications with divergence in gene
Parish Politics in Early Modern East Central Europe, 1650–1800: The Role of Popular Politics in Late Catholic Confessionalization and Early Modern State-Building
ELTE HUMAN TUDOMANYOK KUTATOKOZPONTJA · HU · €1,997,500
Why is our picture of the early modern East Central European popular politics often contradictory, fragmented, and difficult to generalise? The project addresses this question by exploring parish politics as a form of popular politics through which local communities participated in parish matters by creating a local public arena around Catholic parishes. The project examines how local communities influenced late Catholic confessionalization and early modern state building through parish politics
Navigating Ethical Dilemmas of Migrant Solidarity
UNIVERSITAT FUR WEITERBILDUNG KREMS · AT · €2,000,000
Policymakers and civil society actors in the migration field are often confronted with ethical dilemmas. Yet, no systematic comparative study exists of how these actors respond to ethical dilemmas in real-life circumstances, and we lack a theory to explain their decisions and assess their impact on the actors’ political identity. Focusing on actors engaged in solidarity practices with irregular and precarious migrants, which raise particularly acute dilemmas, MIGSOL therefore asks: When faced wi
Igusa Stacks and the Langlands program
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE · GB · €1,999,760
The Langlands program, often called a ``grand unified theory of mathematics'', predicts reciprocity laws that relate very different kinds of mathematical objects: automorphic forms and Galois representations. Shimura varieties play a fundamental role in constructing and propagating instances of Langlands reciprocity.In the past decade, advances in p-adic geometry have revolutionised the study of Shimura varieties. This recently led to the introduction of certain p-adic analytic varieties called
ResIntegrate: Integrating and predicting resilience of ecological systems to multiple disturbances
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · GB · €2,213,026
Ecological systems rarely face disturbances one at a time. Instead, droughts, fires, storms, and human pressures often occur together or in rapid succession, interacting in ways that can amplify or dampen their effects. Some ecosystems resist these disturbances or recover quickly, while others collapse or shift into entirely new states. Understanding why these different outcomes occur is one of the central challenges in ecology and is critical for predicting biodiversity change and sustaining th
Charting Infants’ Language, Auditory, and Motor Experiences in Everyday Contexts
TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR · FI · €2,154,090
Infant development, including language, is shaped by infants’ experiences with the external environment. This environment is not a uniform stream of sensory input, but is structured into contexts, activities, and routines that shape the flow of experiences. Gradually developing motor abilities also enable infants to engage with these contexts in new ways, fostering opportunities for learning. Despite their significance, little is known about how the real-world contexts and infants’ own motor dev
Precise Computation of Thermal Phase Transition Parameters
UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA · ES · €1,801,250
Our understanding of field theories at finite temperature (FTQFT) has undergone significant progress in the last decade. It has been boosted in part by the necessity of correctly interpreting the data from current and future detectors of gravitational waves (GWs) produced during Phase Transitions (PT) in the early and hot Universe. By now it is well established that the correct description is provided by a 3-dimensional Euclidean effective field theory (EFT) involving only those degrees of freed
Towards An Accurate Measurement of the Lifetime of Ultracold Neutrons Suspended in a Novel Fully Magnetic Trap
JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ · DE · €1,999,410
The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics predicts the free neutron lifetime, τn, as a function of only two input parameters with high precision. Recent theoretical progress now provides a SM description of neutron decay at the 10−4 level. My project, NuLife, will enable a future measurement of τn with 0.1 s accuracy to test these SM predictions at the same unprecedented level through the pioneering development of a novel, large-volume, and deep magnetic trap. Previous measurements with a mate
Understanding how nature reshapes human sense of time to foster well-being and sustainable futures
TURUN YLIOPISTO · FI · €1,983,773
Time is a central dimension of the human experience; our perception of time influences how we feel and act upon the world. A growing number of people living in fast-paced urban environments report feelings of time scarcity, which have been associated with risky behaviours and poor well-being. Yet, mounting evidence suggests that nature experiences can regulate how urban dwellers perceive time, positively impact their well-being, and promote more sustainable behaviours. This raises the thought-pr
The epigenetic cost and benefit balance of giant virus endogenizations
QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON · GB · €1,999,997
Giant viruses, renowned for their exceptionally large genomes with thousands of genes, are increasingly being identified as integrated elements within eukaryotic genomes. This seemingly paradoxical process of endogenization is significant, as it represents a pathway for large-scale lateral gene transfer in eukaryotes. However, the initial integration of viral DNA can impose severe evolutionary costs, potentially being lethal for the host. The overarching hypothesis of this proposal is that the g
High-Performance Pressure-Free Silicon All-Solid-State Batteries by Integrated Physical and Digital Twin Techniques
QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON · GB · €1,999,992
Silicon (Si) presents a promising advancement over current graphite electrodes for high-energy automotive batteries, offering a tenfold greater capacity (3579 mAh g⁻¹). However, its application is hindered by substantial volume changes during charge/discharge cycling that causes rapid degradation. Overcoming this challenge is pivotal to achieve a climate-neutral society.Redefining the conventional paradigm, TWIN-SiNERGY aims to deliver a transformative separator-free monolithic Si all-solid-stat
In/visible women of the sea. Gendering fishery politics and advocacy
UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN · NO · €1,995,107
Fishery is commonly conceived of as a “man’s world”, even if women comprise half of the fisheries and aquaculture work force value chain globally. Gender inequality is a persistent feature of the fishery sector, despite attention to the issue by scholars, policy advocates, and in some countries; public officials and fisher women themselves. The GENMAR-project will fill substantial empirical and theoretical knowledge in our understanding of why and how women are continuously marginalized in fishe
Tracking Polluted Clouds: the Plausibility of a Strong Aerosol Cooling Effect on Earth’s Climate
TARTU ULIKOOL · EE · €1,998,875
Anthropogenic climate change is a tug-of-war with fossil fuels playing both sides of the field. Fossil fuel use emits both climate-warming greenhouse gases and climate-cooling aerosols. And aerosol impacts on clouds might have thus far masked a large fraction of greenhouse gas warming. If the aerosol cooling is strong, it implies 1) that the Earth’s climate is more sensitive to anthropogenic greenhouse gases than currently thought, and 2) reduced aerosol pollution has brought forward global warm
Mnemonic and predictive influences on sensory processing: mapping the neural computations
UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT · NL · €1,999,462
Processing the present (perception) is shaped by past experiences (memory) and current expectations of future events (prediction). The Bayesian brain hypothesis formalizes this idea, positing that living agents maintain a model of the world, built upon memories and entailing predictions of likely causes of sensations. Prediction is mediated by multiple brain regions such as sensory neocortex and the hippocampus, and my research has pinpointed several neural mechanisms of prediction across task c
Time-varying metaphotonics via reverse engineering
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITAET HANNOVER · DE · €1,999,996
Among the most transformative frontiers in nanophotonics are time-varying materials, whose optical properties can be dynamically modulated on femtosecond to picosecond timescales in response to external stimuli, such as light pulses, enabling ultrafast control over light-matter interactions. These materials hold the promise to enable the next generation of dynamic and tunable metaphotonic devices with reprogrammable functionalities. Transparent conductive oxides belong to this category of materi
Characterisation Of Rhizaria in modern Oceans: from living cells to fossils
UNIVERSITE DU LITTORAL · FR · €2,600,000
Can we simultaneously learn from past, present, and future oceans by studying plankton? For 521 million years, Rhizaria have abundantly and ubiquitously populated all oceans from the surface to the deep. They have biomineralised intricate skeletons by using silicon, thus impacting marine biogeochemical cycles. Upon death, their skeletons can become fossils and reflect ancient planktonic life. Yet, do fossils reflect all Rhizaria populations living in the water column? What is the fate of some la
Reimagining Schools Through a Post-Disaster Lens
INSTITUT ZA DRUSTVENA ISTRAZIVANJA U ZAGREBU · HR · €1,977,855
Reimagining Schools through a Post-Disaster Lens (RESADL) will take the lead in affirming the field of educational research on disasters in Europe. It will fill a major lacuna in empirical research on education and disasters: the lack of a holistic perspective on school roles in post-disaster settings, and the conditions shaping them. Its overarching questions are: What school roles are suspended, enacted, contested and imagined in post-disaster settings, and what accounts for their convergences
Foundations of Weakly Consistent Objects for Shared-Memory Programming
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY · IL · €2,000,000
Despite being intuitive, strong consistency necessitates frequent global coordination, significantly limiting the scalability of concurrent systems. In shared-memory programming, the need to relax the consistency guarantees has long been recognized, spurring extensive research and driving the adoption of weak memory models in programming languages. However, the situation is markedly different at the level of concurrent objects. For objects---designed to provide common functionalities to clients
Botanical Legacies: Towards a New History and Philosophy of Virtual Herbaria
RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM · DE · €1,999,500
This project sets the foundation for a more inclusive, theoretically sound, and socially just botany of the 21st century. Herbaria hold ca. 400 million preserved plant specimens worldwide. They are vital repositories of botanical and environmental knowledge. However, chronic underfunding has made much of this knowledge inaccessible. Recent digitization efforts for ‘virtual herbaria’ are believed to change this, as they expand accessibility and trigger new studies in herbarium genomics and AI-dri
Descriptive Complexity in the Finite and Infinite
EOTVOS LORAND TUDOMANYEGYETEM · HU · €1,855,274
We propose to study infinite, definable (Borel, measurable, etc.) graphs and structures and their interplay with finite ones from the perspective of descriptive complexity. Our focus will be on the following three directions:-Determining the descriptive complexity of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), or, equivalently, homomorphism problems on infinite domains. -Analyzing the concept of Borel hyperfiniteness of graphs and establishing new examples of non-hyperfinite graphs using methods fr
Search for Double Beta Plus Decays with a Novel Detector Concept Combining Hybrid and Opaque Scintillator Techniques
JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ · DE · €1,999,892
The pre-dominance of ordinary matter over anti-matter in the observable universe is one of the major unsolved questions of cosmology. Without this so-called baryon asymmetry (BA) the universe would be a void. An avenue to explain BA is through the discovery of a process that violates the number of leptons (LNV). Prime candidate is the neutrinoless double beta decay (0n2b). While in ordinary double beta decays (2n2b) two nucleons simultaneously decay in two charged leptons and two neutrinos, in 0
PROtecting access to the SPace Environment by assessing the Risks of space debris
UNIVERSITY OF KENT · GB · €2,878,795
Our ever-expanding use of, and dependence on, space is under threat from space debris – objects resulting from our activities beyond Earth and ranging in size from flecks of paint to whole rocket stages. These pose an impact hazard to orbiting satellites and, ultimately, the continued safe access to space. De-orbiting objects into the atmosphere is also a potential pollution risk. This is thus an anthropogenic, technological geohazard in the near Earth environment arising from aerospace engineer
Handcrafted Coalitions: Tantear beyond Borders through Digital Mapping
UNIVERSITAT LINZ · AT · €1,999,183
When we hear about migration and asylum, we usually think of struggles at border crossings, extensive bureaucratic procedures, and the precarious situation of migrants. We rarely think of the objects handcrafted by people on the move, the knowledge these objects entail, what these objects make possible, and the stories these objects tell about the journeys of people on the move. HANDigiCRAFT takes an innovative step by paying attention to objects handcrafted by people on the move and the relatio
Rethinking Copyright Policy in the Digital Age: Balancing Incentives for Creation and Access
UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €1,983,075
Copyrights are a key driver of the creative industries and a cornerstone of modern economic activity. At its core, copyright protection must balance a fundamental trade-off between encouraging investment in creative products and ensuring their access. Weak copyright protection risks undermining creators' incentives to innovate, while overly strong protection can discourage the dissemination of ideas. Despite its crucial importance, we empirically know very little about the optimal level of copyr
Interacting open synthetic dimensions systems
UNIVERSITAT KONSTANZ · DE · €1,998,985
Recent technological advances are propelling the field of quantum simulation, with pioneering light-matter experiments in electronic, cold-atomic, and photonic systems. These developments enable the creation of systems with “synthetic dimensions”, where observable effects emerge from dimensions higher than that of the physical experimental setup. Such systems are inherently out of equilibrium, as synthetic dimensions arise from parametric drives that couple internal degrees of freedom or adiabat
Theory and numerics for electronic structure
UNIVERSITE PARIS-SACLAY · FR · €1,223,750
Electronic structure methods allow for the simulation of molecules and materials from first principles. Among these methods, Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) stands out for its balance between computational cost and accuracy. Mathematically, it is a system of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations with an interestinggeometrical structure. DFT is enormously popular in applications to physics, chemistry, materials science and biology. However, it suffers from a lack of robustnes
Targeting airway lymphocytes in asthma and biologics treatment
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET · SE · €1,999,008
The development of biologics targeting cytokines involved in type 2 lymphocyte function and activation offers new hope for more than 16 million patients living with severe asthma, but not all patients respond, and none are cured. This calls for increased understanding of airway tissue type 2 lymphocytes and how they are regulated by novel biologics in severe asthma. I discovered human innate lymphoid cells type 2 (ILC2), and have shown how they, in addition to T helper 2 (Th2) cells, orchestrate
Understanding the specialized function of human neurons and circuits
STICHTING VU · NL · €2,000,000
Human cognition stands out from other species, but how neurons and circuits in the human brain support cognition is poorly understood. Our recent work showed that human brain holds specialized neuron types – pyramidal neurons in cortical layer 3 (L3 PNs) – with distinct properties that associate with IQ scores. In the human brain, L3 PNs form circuits with each other and another human-specialized interneuron type, double bouquet cell (DBC). These circuits might be critical for human cognition as
Deciphering the logic of representational drift and its conversion to stable readouts.
UNIVERSITAT DES SAARLANDES · DE · €1,990,625
We perceive the world around us as constant. When we engage in the same action over days and weeks, for instance when we walk down a familiar road, it feels the same every day. Neurons build a model (or representation) of the external world that is thought to guide behaviour. However, neural representations change over time, leading to a restructured model of the world. This phenomenon, called representational drift, has been identified across a range of brain regions and behaviours, and poses a
Unlocking bio-inspired machine hearing and accelerating personalized hearing technologies
UNIVERSITEIT GENT · BE · €1,999,712
As the hearing loss epidemic grows due to an aging population and increasing exposure to urban and recreational noise, the demand for accessible, personalized audio solutions has become more urgent. At the same time, the limitations of speech- and audio-driven systems, such as speech recognition and robotics, are becoming clear. These systems struggle in noisy environments, and consumer electronics for speech and music lack adaptation to individual hearing impairments. To address these challenge
Conceptual diversity and the evolution of abstract thought
UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €1,998,750
Human cultural evolution Human cultural evolution is often traced via ancient pot-shards, cave paintings and ritualistic traditions. But a greater challenge is to unravel the abstract concepts behind these physical traces. Cultural evolution involves not just artefacts and practices, but also the transmission of conceptual structures – ways of mentally representing the world – with continuous intergenerational transmission over thousands of years. Cultural areas in distinct parts of the world ha
Supermassive Black Hole Transients: From Single Brush Strokes to the Entire Painting
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY · IL · €2,053,750
In the past decade, a plethora of transients in galaxy centers has been discovered and their study has become a flourishing field of research. Many of these so-called “nuclear transients” (given their position in the nuclei of galaxies) are interpreted as tidal disruption events (TDEs) around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and are used to study accretion physics, galaxy dynamics, SMBH growth and environments, stellar populations in galactic nuclei and more. However, important puzzles surroundi
Astrocytic Metabolic Reprogramming as a Therapeutic Target for Alzheimer’s Disease
UNIVERSIDAD DE NAVARRA · ES · €1,999,637
Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents a growing public health challenge, with its prevalence steadily increasing profoundly affecting both patients and their families. Despite extensive research focusing on amyloid-beta and tau as central pathological hallmarks of AD, the crucial role of astrocytic metabolism in neurodegeneration has often been overlooked. The HyperAstroMet project introduces a novel approach by investigating astrocytic hypermetabolism as a pivotal driver of neuronal hyperexcitabi
Past-aware material networks towards tomorrow’s textile robots
AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR · FI · €1,999,578
Textile Past-a-Bots will materialize future’s interaction interfaces between humans, other species, machines, and their environment. The foundations for this will be done by crafting active yarns into functional textile motifs, for simple sensing, computing, change in dimensions or in mechanical properties. Past-a-Bots can be dynamically assembled using these motifs, integrating the ability to detect sounds, vibrations, and proximity. The multi-sensorial functionalities allow for an ecocentric a
Nonequilibrium Quantum Matter beyond Unitary Dynamics
INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AUSTRIA · AT · €1,999,492
The field of quantum simulation holds immense promise for exploring new physical phenomena, however unlocking its full potential requires a paradigm shift. Modern quantum simulators naturally allow to measure a broad class of multi-body correlation functions for which we are lacking adequate theory, and operate in an uncharted regime where the system is subject to intrinsic unitary dynamics and driving, as well as nonunitary dynamics such as dissipation, projective or weak measurements, and feed
COMpilers for ExTreme Heterogeneity
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET DRESDEN · DE · €2,000,000
Computing has become a key pillar of many areas in society and science. For decades, the ever-increasing complexity of computing systems has been hidden via incremental advances in programming abstractions, compilers and runtimes environments. Underlying these abstractions is the 8-decade old von Neumann Computing (vNC) model. The demise of scaling laws in electronics, however, has sparked disruption in devices and Hardware (HW) architectures, leading to novel Non-von Neumann Computing (NvNC) pa
Fair-Weather Finance: Historical Antecedents of Climate Risk Management
UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €2,000,000
The insurance and reinsurance sectors, including institutions such as Lloyd’s of London, Swiss Re, and Munich Re, assert that they have the necessary instruments to address devastating weather events and climate catastrophe. In order to develop appropriate risk management instruments to protect against disruptive natural events, insurance companies have been conducting their own forms of research on weather and climate since the latter half of the eighteenth century. Over the past several decade
The Attribute Frequency Model: Understanding and Mitigating Biases in Social Perception
RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM · DE · €1,969,250
I introduce the Attribute Frequency Model (AFM), a novel theoretical framework to explain biases in human social perception. The AFM posits that the frequency of observed individuals’ or groups’ attributes influences social perceptions of similarity, (in-)equality, and valence. Rare attributes amplify perceived differences, inequalities, and negativity among social groups, while frequent attributes emphasize similarities, equality, and positivity. The model assumes that humans lack the meta-cogn
Decoding bacterial immunity to enhance antimicrobial action
EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN · DE · €1,999,986
The rise of antibiotic resistance demands new strategies to combat bacterial infections. With renewed interest in phage-bacteria interactions, over 150 novel phage defence systems were recently identified, most of which protect bacteria from propagating phages via host-regulated death or growth arrest in an abortive infection process (Abi). Abi systems, encoded primarily on mobile genetic elements, exhibit diverse mechanisms and are pervasive in bacteria. However, despite significant mechanistic
A Forgotten Renaissance: The Interplay between Jurisprudence and Humanism (14th-16th c.) and Its Cultural Legacy
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO · IT · €1,796,643
From the 14th to the 16th centuries, European jurists and humanists worked in the same social milieu, competed for the same political roles, and often shared the same education. Yet, the scholarly consensus portrays these professional groups as indifferent or hostile to one another. HumanLaw challenges this view by revealing a network of mutual influence between jurists and humanists so extensive and significant that its continued oversight is striking.Integrating philosophical, historical, phil
Hyperpolarized Surface-enhanced Liquid-State Spectroscopy
UNIVERSITAT WIEN · AT · €1,998,020
Across science, medicine, and industry, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a key technique with the unique capacity to provide atomistically detailed molecular models. Its primary drawback, however, lies in its low sensitivity, limiting its ability to address critical scientific questions. A potential answer is hyperpolarization via dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization (dDNP), which can amplify NMR sensitivity 10,000-fold. Despite this promise, dDNP remains a niche method constrained to a n
Secondary Pseudepigraphy: Claimed Apostolically-Connected Authors and the Reception of Early Christian Literature
UNIVERSITAT WIEN · AT · €1,999,313
The CLAIM Project studies the late antique and medieval practice of assigning an apostolic connection to a series of writings composed under the name of early Christian characters like Dionysius the Areopagite, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and others, thought to have met central apostolic figures like Paul, Peter, or John. Unlike similar apocryphal works (attributed to the apostles themselves and implicitly claiming their direct authority), this broadly transmitted literature draws on a
Theory of nonradiative decay with two or more electrons at play
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · BE · €1,999,500
UNBOUND TWO aims to develop the quantum chemistry methods that are needed to interpret next-generation spectroscopy involving two or more unbound electrons and to understand chemical reactions involving unbound doubly-excited states. Emerging spectroscopies can probe correlations between two electrons, which is fundamentally impossible with techniques that probe only one electron. To gain information about electronic and molecular structure from such spectra, theoretical modeling is key. However
Breaking the membranous refuge of intracellular bacteria
UMEA UNIVERSITET · SE · €2,000,000
Many clinically important pathogens invade human cells and evade their intrinsic defenses by hiding within pathogen-containing vacuoles (PCVs). Hence, it may be feasible to combat such microbes by deliberately destabilizing their PCVs. To promote progress towards such an innovative therapeutic concept, I propose a 5-year research program in which my team will generate a molecular mechanistic understanding of how the PCV is maintained, how it can be destabilized, and how the consequences of PCV d
Revealing Cosmic Structure Growth and the Early Universe with the CMB Backlight
THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · GB · €1,999,781
With pioneering measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) gravitational lensing and scattering, this project will address two of the most important questions in cosmology.Do we understand how cosmic structure grows over time? The growth of large-scale structure with time is one of the most powerful tests of our standard cosmological model and of new physics. Intriguingly, claims of tensions between observations of structure growth and standard model predictions persist. By measuring CMB
Transforming the study of radicals in chemical kinetics and beyond
THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL · GB · €2,807,248
Gas-phase radicals (atoms or molecules with an unpaired electron) are hugely influential in numerous areas of research. Radicals are responsible for much of the chemistry occurring in the atmosphere, the interstellar medium, in plasmas, and in combustion processes. However, very few existing experimental methods can measure gas-phase radical processes under controlled conditions, resulting in significant unanswered questions across multiple fields. For example, our understanding of atmospheric c
The Vicious Cycle of Inequality: How Economic Inequality Perpetuates Itself by Creating a Culture of Competitiveness in Schools
UNIVERSITE DE LAUSANNE · CH · €2,000,000
The perpetuation of income and wealth inequality across generations threatens the foundations of a fair and stable society. This project investigates the novel idea that economic inequality perpetuates itself by creating a culture of competitiveness among children and adolescents in schools. I propose that contexts of economic inequality increase the importance of status, leading parents and teachers to encourage students to be more competitive. While students from advantaged families often exce
Quantifying the limits of early life through the biogeochemical phosphorus redox cycle
THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS · GB · €1,992,461
What limited the size of Earth’s early biosphere? Answering this question has critical implications for constraining the pace of early evolution and the habitability of other terrestrial planets. Previous studies have suggested that the early biosphere was limited by metabolic energy, specifically the supply of electron donors. This proposition implies that phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) – the key biolimiting nutrients today – were available in excess. However, current estimates of dissolved P
Understanding Women’s Health Through the Lens of Hormonal Sensitivity: Genetics, Mechanisms and Health Trajectories
TARTU ULIKOOL · EE · €1,863,125
Hormonal sensitivity conditions such as premenstrual syndrome, hormonal medication side effects, and (peri)menopausal symptoms affect billions of women but remain poorly understood. These conditions share a common factor: fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone levels that interact with endocrine, neurological, and metabolic systems, creating a continuum of individual hormone sensitivity. UNDERwHER aims to redefine the hormone sensitivity spectrum (HSS) by addressing its biological underpinnin
Mapping White Adipose Tissue lipid UPtake to cardiovascular disease initiation
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET · SE · €2,000,000
Obesity is associated with adipose tissue dysfunction and greatly increased risk for developing not only metabolic pathologies but also cardiovascular disease (CVD). While insulin resistance and adipose-derived cytokines are established drivers of vascular dysfunction and atherosclerosis initiation, the direct contribution of changes in white adipose tissue (WAT) lipid uptake on vascular health has remained unresolved, yet would open up novel treatment opportunities. My lab has built an arsenal
Dynamics of Deep Earthquakes
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA · IT · €1,947,405
Deep earthquakes (>70km) are a puzzling yet insufficiently understood process occurring inside the Earth. Despite their potential for significant magnitudes (up to 9) and associated hazards, their physics remains elusive. The theoretical inhibition of earthquakes with increasing temperature and pressure at depth contrasts with over a century of observed occurrences, prompting the persistent question: What causes deep earthquakes? We argue that to tackle this question we need a methodological shi
Towards a unified structure theory for dense graphs
UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI · PL · €1,997,863
The fields of graph algorithms and of structural graph theory enjoy a particularly fruitful symbiosis, marked by a rich exchange of techniques, concepts, and inspirations. At this point, structural graph theory provides a comprehensive toolbox for the treatment of sparse graphs. Compared to this, our understanding of dense graphs is much more fragmented and incomplete. Motivated by a recent wave of advances in this topic, we propose to launch a systematic investigation of links between the exist
Dissecting the Contributions of Neurogenesis-Defined Subpopulations of Hippocampal Neurons to Balancing Memory Stability and Malleability
UNIVERSITAT BASEL · CH · €1,998,917
The ability to update memories underpins adaptive behaviours, ensuring that our internal models of the world remain consistent with the dynamic environments we inhabit. Striking a balance between memory stability (the persistence and robustness of memories over time) and malleability (the capacity to update memories in response to new information) is thus essential to learn from experience and adapt to change. While the biological foundations of memory stability are increasingly understood, the
Atomically engineered core-shell OER catalysts from free‐standing oxide membranes
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH · DE · €1,997,951
Major efforts in recent years to develop catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) have shown that perovskites and spinels have significant catalytic activity, making them a promising materials class for water-splitting for hydrogen production. However, so far these complex oxides have displayed limited stability, which prevents realizing their potential. This activity-stability dilemma is compounded by the fact that most progress on ‘rational catalyst design and property engineering’ so
From biology to culture: Clarifying how humans categorize rhythm across the lifespan, senses, social learning and brain networks
UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN · BE · €1,999,300
Humans show an outstanding capacity to perceive and move to musical rhythms. These skills rely on mapping the sheer diversity of external rhythms onto a set of internal rhythm categories. However, the brain bases of rhythm categorization remain largely unknown. One view is that the underlying mechanisms are anchored in the evolutionarily oldest subcortical parts of the brain. This view is intuitive, given the universality of some musical rhythms (based on a grid of equal time intervals and their
Duality approach to non-equilibrium quantum matter
THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM · GB · €1,979,558
The systematic understanding of equilibrium collective phenomena through the principles of symmetry and scale is one of the landmark achievements of last century's theoretical physics. The present day analogue is to deduce the laws governing the collective phenomena occurring out of equilibrium, and their basic organising principles, with particular attention to those in complex quantum systems. Solving this problem requires us to overcome the monumental obstacle represented by the lack of gener
Nanomagnetic Tomography: Unlocking the Vortex Realm for Paleomagnetism and Rock-magnetism
UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT · NL · €2,977,831
The Earth’s magnetic field plays a pivotal role in the Earth Sciences: magnetic signals stored in geological materials, such as igneous rocks, provide a record of Earth’s magnetic history and are essential for understanding e.g. tectonic processes, planetary dynamics, and the behavior of the geomagnetic field itself. Much of this record, however, remains inaccessible because not all magnetic particles in a sample reliably record the Earth’s magnetic field. Small, sub-micron vortex-state particle
Towards non-invasive and cost-effective digital twin solutions for cardiac electromechanics
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO · IT · €1,790,587
Cardiac digital twinning is emerging as a cornerstone of precision cardiology, creating patient-specific digital replicas of the heart that integrate anatomy and electromechanical function. These cardiac digital twins (CDTs) promise personalised therapy and improved outcomes. However, current CDT technologies depend on high-quality imaging and electrocardiographic data, limiting their applicability to a small subset of cases.Cardiorama aims to revolutionise CDTs by enabling anatomical and functi
Using Motor Learning to Establish a Scientific Foundation for Mapping Techniques in Virtual Reality
KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · DK · €1,998,401
The distinctive potential of Virtual reality (VR) is to give people experiences of being in worlds they otherwise could not be in, having a body that is unlike their real one, and doing things they could not do in real life. That potential can be realised with VR interaction techniques that map the movements of the physical body to a virtual one–mapping techniques. Despite over two decades of research on mapping techniques, there is no scientific foundation for developing them. As a consequence,
Large-scale disruptions to animal migration
LUNDS UNIVERSITET · SE · €1,719,761
This project will use state-of-the-art monitoring and experiments to investigate how animal migration is controlled, how animals use cues, and factors that govern migratory behaviour. I will do this by taking the novel approach of focusing on three large-scale disruptors that migrants can encounter on their journeys; artificial light, magnetic storms and extreme temperatures, and use the effect of these disruptors on both the individual and system level to discover how sensitive migratory behavi
Biological functions made printable: smart bioprinting with agency and control over cell fate and human tissue development
UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT · NL · €2,312,492
Three-dimensional bioprinting holds the promise to transform medicine and biology by assembling living matter into lab-made human tissues. Today’s bioprinting excels at producing anatomical shapes, to an extent unmatched by other technologies. However, in native tissues, biological function is intimately linked to architecture, but also tissue maturation and morphogenesis, processes that dynamically evolve as cells respond to environmental stimuli. Bioprinting has no way to follow maturation ove
Scalable superconducting Qubit readout with millikelvin detection
INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM · BE · €2,862,076
Quantum computing is a game-changing technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach computing and problem-solving. These last years, research groups around the world have made great strides in building quantum computers. One of the most promising is superconducting quantum technology, based on superconducting quantum bits (qubits). While plans to reach quantum computers with hundreds of qubits are in motion, the current technology is not yet scalable to sizes required for
Dealing With Distrust: How Public Organizations Respond To Conspiracy Theories.
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM · NL · €1,999,272
How do public organizations respond to rising levels of popular distrust fueled by conspiracy theories? Many European citizens no longer trust their own societal institutions to work for the public good, but imagine those to be governed by a shadowy cabal with nefarious motives. While there is much research on conspiracy theories, there is little, if any, academic knowledge on how these institutions deal with rising levels of conspiratorial distrust. This clear knowledge gap is all the more surp
Assembling the building blocks of advanced color and polarization vision
LUNDS UNIVERSITET · SE · €2,000,000
The natural lightscape is awash in a wealth of visual information that animal eyes have evolved to interpret and exploit. Often, they possess visual capabilities beyond our own, including perception of additional colors (wavelengths) or the polarization of light (the orientation of light waves - an entirely separate visual modality we have no sensitivity to). However, little is known about how these advanced visual systems evolved. I hypothesize that they emerged from segregated information chan
Firms and Careers: How the Workplace Structures Career Inequality
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM · NL · €1,999,813
Over the past decades, economic inequality has increased in most societies, threatening social cohesion and limiting opportunities for many. Recent studies highlight the workplace—or firm—as a core arena where this inequality is generated. However, our understanding of the mechanisms by which firms affect inequality remains limited. Moreover, research that examines this relationship compares workers at one point in time, neglecting how firms shape careers.FIRMS addresses these critical gaps. It
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